1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to tube positioners, and more particularly, to apparatus for orienting a hand of multiwall paper tubes, or the like, for presentation to an ender or bottomer which closes and seals one end of each tube to form a shipping sack.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Since customer requirements vary, some requiring the tubes to be ended flap-to-face at one end or at the opposite end, or flap-to-back at one end or at the opposite end, the tubes must be oriented for proper entry into an ender based upon those requirements.
Tubes formed in a tuber are placed on a conveyor in shingled disposition and advanced to a gate or hand forming means which stack the tubes by interfering with their advance for a determined period of time during which the tubes slide along one another to abut against the gate thus to form a stack or hand of the desired number of tubes. When the hand is constituted by the desired number of tubes, the gate opens and the conveyor moves the hand through the gate.
It was usual manually to reorient the tubes on the conveyor, if necessary, to meet customer requirements or, if for any reason the ender could not accept tubes at the rate of output of the tuber, the hands were removed from the conveyor and returned at a later time to be placed on the conveyor in proper orientation for further processing. In either case the procedure necessitated relatively high labor costs.